The report of 50 some fatalities is from Harrison County, which is where Gulfport is. Given the kind of surge Jim Cantore reported from Gulfport, we know that conditions were very extreme there. I haven't seen any reports from the next country west, Hancock, which includes Waveland and Bay St. Louis. It's more lightly populated, but since Katrina made her final landfall around the mouth of the Pearl River I'd say from that point to Biloxi was the zone most severely impacted.

The terrible reality is that as search and recovery continues through the night and into daylight tomorrow, the toll will surely rise. It is sobering to consider how much greater a loss of life would have come to pass had Katrina not weakened prior to landfall or if a more densely populated area like New Orleans had received the kind of hit that Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, and Gulfport did.